Davis Which CSA Generals Hated Jefferson Davis the Most?

JeffBrooks

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It's well-known that General Joseph Johnston and General P.G.T. Beauregard quite possibly hated Jefferson Davis more than they hated the Yankees. But what other generals could be described as anti-Davis? D.H. Hill probably had no love for Davis after he sided with Bragg during the spat after Chickamauga. Any other contenders?
 
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It's well-known that General Joseph Johnston and General P.G.T. Beauregard quite possibly hated Jefferson Davis more than they hated the Yankees. But what other generals could be described as anti-Davis? D.H. Hill probably had no love for Davis after he sided with Bragg during the spat after Chickamauga. Any other contenders?
I guess the next question is why would they hate Davis? If they did was their hatred justified? How do we define justified?
While I am not a huge Davis fan in order to be fair and balanced Davis had has we know a limited amount of manpower and weaponry to go around. Unlike today when generals can just phone the president from the battlefield communications back in the day where kind of slow. Not to say that Davis walked on water but to be fair he could not be expected to work miracles.
Leftyhunter
 
Johnston had a grudge with Davis over what he felt was a promotion that occurred after some other men, and he felt he had seniority. He wrote a six page letter blasting Davis, saying his honor was besmirched, etc. Beauregard was just a man with a big ego, who felt like Davis was slighting him by not going along with his grandiose plans, I think. In both cases, people got their feelings hurt over slights, real or imagined. I think the fault largely lies with the generals for the bad feelings, though Davis was certainly quick to hold a grudge as well.
 
Robert Toombs was no fan.
He ran against and lost to Davis for President of the Confederacy.

Davis and his entourage came through Washington GA, Toombs hometown, in May '65 to withdraw some Confederate funds deposited there; Toombs offered assistance to Davis, but refused to receive him in his home.
source: Mark Scroggins, "Fugitive in Georgia", Georgia Backroads. Autumn 2013
 
Quite the opposite. Davis made Polk a major general (when his experience qualified him to be, at most, a major) because the two were old friends. He then kept supporting Polk for years despite repeated proofs of the man's incompetence and scheming.
I realized after I posted this that I had misread the question. My apologies.:redface:
 
Beauregard had openly bad history with Davis.

If I remember it even spanned back to the pre-war days in New Orleans.
 
I would hesitate to call it hate, but, I do think there was little love lost between Davis and
Did they have Davis or did Davis hate them?




I tend to agree. It is entirely possible that the depth of feelings probably ran deeper in Davis than Beauregard and Johnston(but, maybe, not by much)
 
I was surprised to recently see somewhere while researching my thread on old pre-war forts that Davis' favorite sycophant Braxton Bragg actually criticized him in a letter to his wife. Bragg had been posted to Fort Washita in Indian Territory with his battery, blaming Davis who was then Secretary of War and complained to her about the futility of chasing Indians with six-pounders.
 
It's well-known that General Joseph Johnston and General P.G.T. Beauregard quite possibly hated Jefferson Davis more than they hated the Yankees. But what other generals could be described as anti-Davis? D.H. Hill probably had no love for Davis after he sided with Bragg during the spat after Chickamauga. Any other contenders?
I did not know this . Why did they hate him?
 
I was surprised to recently see somewhere while researching my thread on old pre-war forts that Davis' favorite sycophant Braxton Bragg actually criticized him in a letter to his wife. Bragg had been posted to Fort Washita in Indian Territory with his battery, blaming Davis who was then Secretary of War and complained to her about the futility of chasing Indians with six-pounders.
A moment of clarity for BB?
 
I did not know this . Why did they hate him?

Karen, there have been many references to this and several threads as well here on the forums; it's somewhat involved and many aspects have come to light in the resulting discussions. Very briefly, apart from any pre-war wrangles I don't remember, Joe Johnston was miffed he wasn't made overall CS commander because he had outranked everyone else in the prewar U. S. Army and felt Davis was against him. Both Johnston and Beauregard - who were in competition with each other for rank - blamed Davis for the situation. Beauregard was censured for taking all the credit for the victory at Bull Run and "exiled" to Mississippi. All this festered throughout the war and only grew worse as time passed.
 
Polk wouldn't have been a general if not for his friendship with Davis from West Point. All things considered it might have been better for the Confederacy if the two men did hate each other. It would have saved the South from numerous Polk blunders.
I realized that I had misread the question and have already apologized. Sorry, again.
 
Johnston had a grudge with Davis over what he felt was a promotion that occurred after some other men, and he felt he had seniority. He wrote a six page letter blasting Davis, saying his honor was besmirched, etc. Beauregard was just a man with a big ego, who felt like Davis was slighting him by not going along with his grandiose plans, I think. In both cases, people got their feelings hurt over slights, real or imagined. I think the fault largely lies with the generals for the bad feelings, though Davis was certainly quick to hold a grudge as well.

Didn't Johnston and Davis have a blow-out in West Point? Or at least, i have read that somewhere.
 
Johnston had a grudge with Davis over what he felt was a promotion that occurred after some other men, and he felt he had seniority. He wrote a six page letter blasting Davis, saying his honor was besmirched, etc....I think. In both cases, people got their feelings hurt over slights, real or imagined. I think the fault largely lies with the generals for the bad feelings, though Davis was certainly quick to hold a grudge as well.

Johnston felt that as Confederate Law had stated that rank and seniority in the new army would be decided by rank and seniority from the old one, and as he had been the only General to leave the Union for the Confederacy, seniority over the other Generals was his by rights, both moral and legal. What he did not know, and what nobody had felt important enough to tell him, was that the new ranking was determined by which arm of the military (I'm never sure if that's the right term) the officer in question currently served - Line or Staff - and as such his Staff Generalcy didn't count to his new place in seniority the Line and thus he was, quite legally and justifiably, bumped down from 1st to 4th.

Being of the belief that Confederate Law ensure him top billing - as it were - and nobody having bothered to explain to him why that was not the case, Johnston felt that the ranking was a deliberate snub and public rebuke by the Confederate Government towards him and his conduct to that point, and he was deeply and legitimately hurt by it. He wrote a passionate letter detailing just how stricken he felt by this, and then foolishly sent it to Davis. Davis then made matters worse by bringing the letter before his cabinet, railing against it and it's author in their presence, then sending an ill-tempered reply in which he dismissed all of Johnston's concerns, soothed none of his distress and offered no explanation.

One could certainly say that Johnston's over-reacted - and it wouldn't be the first or last time he would do so - but fault is clearly shared, for Davis, too, over-reacted and only served to exacerbate the situation. The whole dispute could have been avoided if both men weren't prone to over-react to slights, percieved or real.
 
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